


Defining Love

by brethilaki



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Asexual Castiel, Asexuality, Dimension Travel, Established Relationship, Happy Ending, Miscommunication, Other, Sensuality, Sexual Frustration, metaphysical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-08
Updated: 2013-02-08
Packaged: 2017-11-28 14:26:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/675412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brethilaki/pseuds/brethilaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean wants to have sex. Cas doesn't. They try to explain themselves to each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Defining Love

It was clear that Cas loved him. It was clear that Cas wanted to be close: little touches when they were in public; lingering ones when they were hidden; engulfing ones when they were truly alone. Cas kissed like he touched, with such fervor, such passion when they found themselves behind closed doors that Dean was certain: they were two consenting adults. But Cas never consented, and nothing ever happened. Maybe he wasn't an adult, either. Maybe Dean wasn't an adult to him. He went through these possibilities tirelessly, because he was in love, undeniably now in love, and he could not understand where Cas's feelings diverged.

He did not understand that the touch Castiel craved was not of the flesh (sins were of the flesh), but what was trapped within it, a heart-sized hypersphere of ether that surrounded his core in four dimensions. Its glow penetrated further, to the plane from which Castiel observed it, projecting a three-dimensional shadow into his vessel, seeing in Dean's flesh the elegance, perhaps, but also the depth of a single line. Dean could not see it. Dean could not see things this way. So Dean agonized, so he wondered what he was doing wrong.

So Cas wondered how to tell him that it was all _right_. That he thrived in the glow of Dean's soul, that his grace swelled to the size of a volcano spewing blessings instead of ash, molten joy in place of rock. His vessel, of course, reacted to physical touch. It allowed Castiel the added pleasure of communing with Dean's lifeblood on a material, a sensual plane, feeling it warm beneath Dean's skin. It let Dean feel him back, and he derived special joy from this reciprocation.

But Castiel, the Angel, could see inside of Dean, quite literally, as if he and his components and his companions were so much lineart on a screen, innards bracketed between the sides of their skin invisible to others on the same flat plane, but laid bare to higher dimensions. He could interact in three dimensions with the flesh and in five with the soul, but thought of breaching the boundaries of the physical on a physical plane was both viscerally repulsive and frightening - and when the weight of millennia of purity and revulsion to sin were added the scale tipped precariously toward a feeling of wrongness whenever Castiel tried to picture himself having sex.

Instead he let Dean lick his way tenderly into his mouth, let his own hands skim the surface of Dean's physical body, let the glory of his grace and the warmth of Dean's soul mingle in a soft white-golden glow that Dean could not see, but the shadow of which tingled skin deep in the wake left by the sliding of Cas's fingers (the unfelt caresses of Cas's grace), and blent indistinguishable with the arousal that pooled in Dean's gut, spilling into his loins. He bit Cas's lip, a gesture of love or sexual frustration (probably both), suckled his milk-white neck, rocked his hips invitingly against him, drawing on every trick from his not inconsiderable arsenal to try to bring Cas to feel about him what he felt about Cas.

Cas had no arsenal, no tricks with which to show him that he was sated (overjoyed) by the touch, when Dean's desires were so clearly unfulfilled.

Dean was unbuttoning his shirt. How far would he let him go? He craved the touch, and he longed to return to Dean the joy that it gave him. But the only thing Dean wanted seemed to be the only thing Cas was unwilling to give.

Dean was kissing along his chest. Dean was brushing his nipples (Cas half flinched, half shuddered with sensual pleasure). Dean was progressing slowly, hoping to ease Cas into the sex, heartened by the lack of complaint thus far. He rubbed Cas's clothed thighs and Cas sighed into his hair, anointing his head with the wetness of his lips. He hated disappointing Dean. He wondered if he could do it, if he could try it - just once.

Dean was rubbing Cas's crotch (still clothed); it wasn't uncomfortable, so he tried to learn to feel Dean's need (even his soul was throbbing with it; innate, or learned so well it became instinct, was his association of love with consummation).

But then Dean was dipping his hand beneath Cas's waistline, coaxing out his soft dick with a calloused hand, touching him with concentration and with skill, but also with love, and a desperation that made him hesitant and overly gentle, afraid that if his touch became too solid, the moment might break.

It broke Cas's heart to break it, but the touch startled his ethereal body into sudden awareness of the material, triggering the visceral response that made him squirm with discomfiture.

"Dean."

Dean stopped and withdrew his hand. He lifted his head from Cas's half bared torso but kept his gaze down.

"You don't want to," he said at length. He was disappointed. This isn't what Cas wanted to make Dean feel.

"I'm sorry," he said helplessly.

"I don't want to make you do anything you're not ready for," Dean said, trying to hide his disappointment. There was an unspoken qualification behind the statement, but Dean wouldn't say it. He rose to put on his shirt.

"Dean." It was the one word he could always say, when he felt he had to say something, but didn't know where to begin. Dean stopped and sighed, laying back down beside Cas but not looking at him.

"It's just... we've been together for a while and we haven't.... you won't...." he glanced over a couple of times, reluctant to speak the words that followed. "I just, I would have hoped you would trust me by now." He sounded mildly hurt and a little anxious, but Castiel was deeply pained by his doubt. "Don't you trust me, Cas?"

"Of course I do, Dean!" Cas started to say but Dean, still glancing over, caught the desperate look in his eye and cut him off with a quick emendation:

"No, maybe that's not fair. You were never that into it, even before... this... but then the way you kissed Meg and of course you watched all that porn so I thought... you would understand. This is... that's how you show love, Cas, when you're human. Which I know you're not, but I still am."

Cas wished he could accept his nonhumanity as an excuse. But Anna - but  _Gabriel_  - but no. There was a relation, but it was not strictly cause and effect. This was something different, and Cas was sure he had seen it in humanity, though he had never paid much it attention (never had need to) before he started to fall (before he started to fall in love). It was a cruel irony that the only other thing to make Cas as anxious as sex did was communication, and that these were the two things most valued in the sort of relationship he had fallen unexpectedly into. It could have been a comfort that Dean at least shared this deficiency, but this only made it harder to say what needed to be said.

"It doesn't have to be, Dean. Love and sex are not the same thing."

"I know that, Cas!" Dean said impatiently. "You don't think I know that? You don't think I love you? You think I'm trying to... to use you? For sex?"

"No!" Cas assured him, adamantly, miserably. "No. So I hope you will understand if... if I don't really want to have sex."

"Of course, what do you think I'm doing now?" Dean asked bitterly. "Not having sex," he answered himself.

"No, Dean, I don't think you understand. I mean - "

"Wait, you mean like, ever?" Dean asked incredulously.

"Yes, Dean. That is what I mean."

"Is this some kind of angel purity thing? Or have you just gone crazy again?"

"Neither," Cas replied shortly, a little offended. "I like... to touch you. I like to feel your soul, but..."

"My soul?" Dean's frustration was making him lash out. "You like to touch my soul? You know what that means to me? Nothing, Cas, because I don't feel that!"

Yes you do, thought Cas angrily.

"Your soul means nothing to you?" he said aloud. He had given everything for that soul.

"No, that's not... I didn't mean..."

"Then this - " he turned on his side, reached out and touched Dean's face, "this means nothing, this - " he caressed the cheek, leaned in to kiss it lightly, "all this - " he nuzzled Dean's hair, wrapped an arm around his chest and another around his head, drawing it in to rest on his shoulder, "this touch means nothing to you?"

"Of course it does, Cas, I - "

"I like to touch you, Dean, and I like to be touched. I want you to like it, too, but you always want more. We can't ever... just touch."

"But that's all we ever do! Of course I want more, Cas, I'm human, that's just the way we are. But haven't you ever even thought about it? Don't you even want to try it?"

"I have thought about trying it, but only to please you," Cas admitted. Dean's face fell.

"I - I don't want that, Cas. I want you to want it, too."

"I'm sorry, Dean. I've tried." He fondled Dean's hair. "Do you want me to stay with you while you fall asleep?" It was growing late.

"Yeah," Dean said, but he was frowning up at the angel, "Yeah, Cas, I do. But I'm kinda... restless right now." By the way Dean shifted, and avoided his eye, Cas could tell that he was still aroused. "And if you're... if we're not gonna do anything, you're just gonna get me more worked up. So not tonight." Cas's grace deflated a little, but he agreed, removing to a remote corner of the universe to admire the beauty of a glowing nebula (it reminded him of the glow if Dean's soul) while he pondered less pleasant thoughts.

 

ㄱㄴㄱㄴㄱㄴㄱㄴ

"Dude. Are you using my computer to look at porn again?" Sam sounded only mildly pissed and mostly just defeated.

"No!" Dean said indignantly, hiding the screen anyway.

"Yeah, no, I definitely saw 'angel' and 'sex' in the search bar. Does Cas know about this?"

"Oh, shut up," Dean snapped, unsuccessfully trying to keep the screen hidden.

"'Do angels have sex?'" Sam read aloud, taking a bite of one of the granola bars he had brought with him when he showed up at the hotel room in the middle of the morning. Dean had spent the best part of the night elsewhere, but Cas had sent him back (as he always did) to the motel room after he'd drifted to sleep (after he'd jerked off to fantasies he was starting to think would never be fulfilled: and he wondered if Cas had watched - he hoped Cas had watched). Sam had been gone when he woke up, though, apparently on a breakfast run, his computer left open and on.

Sam was now frowning deeply. "I dunno, Dean, seems like you're the one who would know, if anyone. I mean, didn't you bang at least two of them?"

"Anna was fallen - she was human, not an angel. Cas... Cas just won't."

"Oh." said Sam after a pause, putting the granola bar down solemnly. "Um. Maybe angels just... don't? I mean, if Anna had to fall to..."

"But Cas fell, too! He got back up but... and then there was that dick Gabriel."

"You really shouldn't talk about him like that, he died saving us."

"Yeah, well he was still kind of a dick. What? He'd probably agree!" Sam sighed.

"Okay, maybe it's not an angel thing, maybe it's just... Cas. Maybe he's scared. Did you talk to him? Maybe he's just not into it."

"Yeah, that's the problem." Dean grumbled sullenly. "I mean, he's into it, he's just not into that."

"Okay..." Sam considered. "Maybe he's asexual."

"'Asexual,' Sam? He's an angel, not a plant."

"No - okay, first of all not all plants are asexual, second - "

"Wait, plants have sex?"

"What? No, not... exactly. Dean - "

"So do they make plant porn? Is that your thing, Sammy, you like trees?"

"Dean! I'm trying to help you, here. Dean, I'm serious! Stop using my computer to look up porn!" Dean had to stop his search for "plant porn" to move his hands out of the way of the slamming lid of Sam's laptop.

"Okay, serious, I'm being serious. So your saying that's... a real thing?"

"What, asexual? I think so. Look it up. You can use my computer, even you can't find porn of that."

"Rule 34, Sammy."

"What?"

"...Never mind."

 

ㄱㄴㄱㄴㄱㄴㄱㄴ

The flutter of wings behind him brought a flutter of nerves to his stomach.

"Dean."

He turned away from the computer: Sam had left him alone with a vague warning of what he would do if it had contracted a sexually transmitted virus by the time he got back.

"Cas - "

"I have been observing people engaged in sex acts while using meditation to control the body temperature and blood flow of my vessel, and was able to achieve a physical state of sexual arousal," Cas admitted nervously. He looked hopeful, but also very uncomfortable. Whatever he had felt, it had dissipated, Dean noticed, instinctively looking down. He sighed.

"Cas, I told you: I don't want to do anything you're not into."

"I'm trying, Dean! I'm trying to be 'into it'! What more do you want me to do?" Cas asked in the wild desperation of someone who has run out if options.

"I want you not to feel like you have to do anything you don't want to do. Okay? Don't worry about me, I can take care of myself." He grinned. "Which you're welcome to watch, by the way. What? - no, it's okay, Cas, I was just offering." Cas muttered something about having witnessed the Sin of Onan before and being willing to watch it again of this would make Dean happy. Dean thought this was pretty kinky (if not a little creepy), but decided not to comment on that.

"Look," he said instead. "I'm not going to pretend I understand what you're about with this 'no sex' thing. Believe me that is something I am never going to understand. But... Cas I don't want to make you unhappy. I don't want us to be just... you trying to please me, okay? It's gotta be about what you want, too, and if you don't want to do this then I don't want you to." He pouted a little when he said it. "But, uh, if you ever, uh, change your mind, ever want to do... anything... you just let me know, alright?"

"Actually, Dean, there is something I wanted to try," Cas said uncertainly, "to... try to show you what I feel."

"Oh. Yeah. Okay."

"It would be strange to you," Cas warned. "You might find it unsettling." 

Bitch please, said Dean's raised eyebrow.

Do you know who you're talking to? said the ghost of a smile on Dean's lips.

"I think I'll be okay," said Dean.

"If you're sure..." said Cas, and he touched Dean's hand.

 

ㄱㄴㄱㄴㄱㄴㄱㄴ 

Dean expected to find himself in Isreal, or in Heaven, or maybe even on the moon - but this was... Dean was not entirely sure this was a real place. He looked in front of him, trying to figure out what he was looking at. It looked like the motel, except... except he could see inside every room, inside every person in every room, from every angle all at once, like looking at a Picasso through a kaleidoscope.

"Cas, what is this? What the hell is this, Cas?"

"Don't let go of me," said a multilayered voice from beside him, "but don't look at me. Close your eyes." Dean obeyed. His hand was squeezed on more sides than it had. "We can't stay long. This is the four-dimensional space outside the plane of your world. Look at yourself, but only yourself. Open your eyes."

Dean obeyed. He looked down at his body, which was comfortingly stable compared to his surroundings - except for a warm glow at the edge of his vision with no traceable source that seemed however most intense when he focused on the center of his chest.

“That is your soul, Dean. Close your eyes again.”

Dean obeyed.

He could see through the lids of his eyes another glow mixing with his own at the corners of the blackness. That glow pulsed and grew, and suddenly he felt it: a warmth inside of him, hot as desire, but calmer; a satisfaction rather than a drive, an insatiable joy sated, the stasis of the inner circles of Heaven. He felt his dick harden, but instead of trying to get off, he enjoyed the feeling of being hard. When the glow in the corners of his eyes finally expanded over his vision and he whited out, he could not say whether he had passed out from the intensity or was lulled to sleep by the feeling of content.

 

ㄱㄴㄱㄴㄱㄴㄱㄴ 

He wasn't out for long. He woke up in bed with Cas standing awkwardly by.

"Whoa," Dean said, shaking his head and looking at Cas curiously, "is that how you see?"

"Hm?" said Cas. "Oh. Sometimes."

"...Is something wrong?"

"No."

"Cas." Cas sighed. 

"It didn't work. You... became aroused when my grace touched your soul, and as I pulled you back into the plane of your world... you orgasmed. I had hoped that showing you would make you understand."

"Oh, come - look, Cas. We're not the same person. Angel. Whatever - we're not gonna see things the same way all the time, okay? In fact that - that - creepy (kind of awesome) thing you just did (don't ever do that again, though) is probably the closest I've ever come to understanding you (honestly, Cas, you're worse than a woman). But I'm serious. I felt something... different. But this isn't just an angel thing, so obviously the angel vision isn't gonna... stop me from getting turned on by you. That's just who I am."

"I wish I could understand that as well as you understand me."

"Yeah, well, I wish I had the angel mojo to show you. It's like being on fire, Cas. But good."

"I don't see how that could be good."

"Fair enough.”

There was a charged silence that Dean felt obliged to break.

“You, uh, wanna do something? We could watch porn on Sam's laptop."

"So you are watching porn on my computer!" The door had swung open and Sam burst in. 

"Dude, were you listening to us? This is a private conversation!"

"Of course not," said Sam. "I came back to the room and I heard voices inside, so I pressed my ear to the door to make sure it was you. Don't change the subject!"

"Actually, I was thinking we could watch  _Tree of Life_."

"Really," said Sam, genuinely surprised but a little incredulous. 

"Yeah, I hear it's like _Miracle of Life_  but with trees. You should like it, Sammy."

" _Miracle of Life_  is not porn, Dean!" Sam snapped after pausing to process the pun. 

"Exactly. So we're not watching porn on your laptop. You should be happy."

"Life is widely considered to be the greatest miracle of all. Even after my faith was shaken, I found it hard to completely forsake my Father when all around me I saw the evidence of creation beyond my capacity to conceive."

"That's fascinating, Cas - "

"Especially in you, Dean."

"You guys sure you don't want to watch a chick flick? You could marathon _Sex in the City_."

"Shut up, Sam!"

 

They ended up watching an old Godzilla movie in washed-out color on the motel's ancient tv. With Cas curled into his chest (asking questions about everything) and Sam nestled against his arm (making fun of everything), Dean felt strangely content - like the shadow of what he had felt when Cas had caressed his soul. He glanced down and wondered if a part of Cas was there now.

Cas was looking up at him, instead of at the TV. He was smiling broadly, an expression that was still relatively rare. So Dean reached down and stroked his hair, and Cas tilted his head up into the touch and let his eyes turn back to the TV screen.

If there was anything in the world that could make Dean Winchester give up sex, he would be it, Dean thought with a sudden jolt of affection. He was sure there would be more uncomfortable talks and compromises in the future, a lot of sexual frustration on his part and possibly a lot of anxiety on Cas's.

But they would work something out. What they had was too perfect to fail. And for right now, for this moment, feeling his own heartbeat drum slowly against Cas's ear, Cas's soft hair flowing through his fingers, and the warmth of Cas's curled body spreading over his his skin like a blanket of grace, Dean was wholly and imperturbably content. 

He laughed, ruffled his brother's hair, and kissed his angel on the head.

**Author's Note:**

> The scene in which Castiel plucks Dean up into the fourth dimension is either heavily influenced by or blatantly plagiarized from a similar situation in an animated short called Flatland, which I watched in the only math class I ever had to take in college. It's pretty interesting (if juvenile), if you're into the geometry of higher spatial dimensions.


End file.
